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Yoon Sunghyun’s Dystopian Heist Thriller to Be Updated by Adam Randall 

Yoon Sunghyun’s Time to Hunt (2020) has been optioned for English-language by its global distributor, streaming giant Netflix.

Directing the remake will be Adam Randall, the British filmmaker responsible for the earlier Netflix features iBoy and Night Teeth. The film is the first instance of a local language Netflix feature being adapted by the streamer into English.

Time to Hunt, the second film by Yoon Sunghyun, who debuted to acclaim with the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) gradation project Bleak Night (2011), was originally set up as a theatrical feature and was dated for release by local distributor Little Big Pictures in February last year.

However, the pandemic put paid to that plan, and the distributor ultimately struck a deal with Netflix for global distribution. Given that Time to Hunt had already presold to several international markets, Little Big Pictures and the film’s sales agent Contents Panda had a brief legal dispute before the Netflix deal was confirmed. The film came out in April last year, becoming the first fully Korean language film to debut as an exclusive Netflix feature.

The film stars Lee Jehoon, Choi Wooshik, Ahn Jaehong and Park Jungmin as a group of youths who rob a gambling den in a dystopian, economically-depressed near-future Seoul. They go on the run when they are chased by a mercenary played by Park Haesoo.

Speaking to Deadline, Randall explained that “I watched the movie early in lockdown and thought it was a really strong concept. It’s a half heist, half chase movie, set in a near dystopia, so it combines three of my favorite cinematic genres. The version I’m working on is set in the U.S. with a different story but a similar structure. From what I understand, this is the first time Netflix has optioned one of its own foreign-language movies. The option process was a little complicated but is now done.”